Bill Gates: Trump asked me the difference between HIV and HPV

FAN Editor

President Donald Trump twice asked Bill Gates the difference between HPV and HIV, the Microsoft founder told an audience at a recent Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation meeting.

The footage of Gates, aired on MSNBC late Thursday, shows the billionaire philanthropist responding to questions from staff members and describing his first exchanges with the president.

Gates recounted meeting Trump twice after he was elected president, once in December of 2016 and once the following March. He expressed mild incredulity at Trump’s questions about two well-known viruses.

“Both times he wanted to know if there was a difference between HIV and HPV, so I was able to explain that those are rarely confused with each other.”

The questions apparently followed a conversation about the effects of vaccines, a topic that remains controversial in the U.S. as a number of people and lawmakers believe common immunization vaccinations are harmful.

“In both of those two meetings, he asked me if vaccines weren’t a bad thing because he was considering a commission to look into ill-effects of vaccines and somebody — I think it was Robert Kennedy Jr. — was advising him that vaccines were causing bad things. And I said no, that’s a dead end, that would be a bad thing, don’t do that,” Gates recalled.

HPV stands for human papillomavirus, which the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) defines as “a group of related viruses” transmitted sexually that can cause warts and, for some types of the virus, cancer. HIV stands for human immunodeficiency virus, and is a sexually-transmitted disease that breaks down the immune system and can lead to AIDS. “Not everyone with HIV develops AIDS,” the NIH says.

“There was a thing during the election where he and I were at the same place and I avoided him,” Gates also said, garnering laughter from the audience.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is said to be the wealthiest charity foundation in the U.S. with more than $42 billion in assets.

A spokesperson for The White House was not immediately available for comment when contacted by CNBC.

Free America Network Articles

Leave a Reply

Next Post

Asian markets mostly gain as investors digest US-China trade news

Asian shares mostly closed higher on Friday, shrugging off the soggy close seen on Wall Street as investors digested the latest over U.S.-China trade developments. Japanese markets closed higher after the release of core consumer price index data, which slightly missed expectations. The Nikkei 225 added 0.4 percent, or 91.99 […]